"Inspect!" I spoke and immediately a status screen appeared in front of me.

Name: Gray Rat brood mother

Race: Rodent

Difficulty level: Simple

Skills:

Crunch: Gray Rat Broodmother's basic ability, crushes its foes with its powerfully razor sharped fangs, causing laceration effect if the prey survives the initial bite.

Tail Swipe: Rears Back then spins around itself, whipping a powerful tail swipe capable of breaking stone and bone alike.

Cleave: Comes Down crashing with poisonous claws at the enemy.

Lore: The first Rat to come in contact with mana, a creature mutated and morphed by the power of a world that is yet to come, if left to achieve its full potential it might become a great disaster that can threaten the survival of mankind.

  "Oh my god." I spoke as my eyes were wide open.

  "What?"

  "This is actually the Gray Rat Broodmother. This thing was one of the most annoying little fuckers we ever had to deal with, and we found it early. GOOD!"

"Why, what did this thing do?"

  "I think that in my past life, no one ever found this, and this creature overgrew its potential, and sent armies of rats to swarm all over the country. The rats caused massive damage and killed many many people. If we can take it out while its weak, it will save a lot of lives." I said.

  "That's some butterfly effect shit, you don't know if this will be good or bad." Will said.

  "These rats were a nightmare, you couldn't even use the sewer system due to them when shit hit the fan, but if we take them out, we'll have better chances at getting to some objectives later on in the future. Trust me, we need to take this thing out right now, while it's still weak." I said.

  The rat decided to stand up and screech, notifying every other rat in the dungeon to the danger.

  "Will, can I trust you with holding the entrance?" I said.

  "Don't you want me to help you with this?" Will asked.

  "Holding of the incoming rats is more than help enough, also you're not trained enough to dodge away from this thing's blows. I don't want you dying on me so early on." I said.

  "If you say so," Will said.

  I pulled another alcohol bottle and poured it on my sword then lit it up. The fire damage will be negligible because its just alcohol, but if I'm lucky it'll catch on the rat's fur and that'll help me greatly.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  I handed Will the bottle and said, "If too many of them come at you at once, light them up." I said then moved towards the rat as fast as possible.

  The rat held its both arms up and came down crashing at where I would have been a second ago, but I forced myself to dodge to the side avoiding the blow and struck against the rat's thick fur trying to take her head out instantly.

  But sadly, the sword was far too weak to cut through the thick fur and only caused a small nick in the rat's neck.

  But that was good enough, even if the fire didn't catch to the rat's fur, it was enough to know I can wound it.

  And like the old adage says, If It Bleeds… It Dies.

  The enraged rat screeched in pain as swung another claw at me to which I pushed myself back, straining my ankles a bit but not enough to sprain them thankfully. This reminded me that I wasn't who I used to be, so I needed to use minimal moves and power otherwise I'll kill myself before the rat does.

  The massive rat found me annoying to kill and decided to head towards will who apparently already started engaging the enemy rats coming to support their mother.

  I can't let her ignore me, so when I looked at where I landed I realized I was close to one of the still not so mature and defenseless newborns. I stabbed the newborn rat in the stomach enticing a pained scream that immediately pulled the mother's attention to me.

  It came charging at me even with its hulking size, opening its wide razor-sharp mouth trying to crush me in between them.

  Taking an injury right now isn't good, so I rolled away regretting it instantly, as doing rolls on the ground is fucking painful for the body especially since my body isn't as strong as it used to be. But it was worth a few bruises in the morning than being rat shit tonight.

  I sliced off another newborn's head making the rat enraged at me as it came disregarding all prudence, running with its four legs and lashing with its tail around her.

  The flames on my sword were soon dying out so I might as well use them now.

  I ducked under a horizontal claw swipe and thrust the sword into the rat's armpit, landing a clean blow, blood poured out from the rat and thankfully some of the fire from the sword caught on to the fur.

  I moved back while the rat screamed and screeched in agonized pain.

  The flames caught on the fur-like it would do to a dry wheat field. But apparently, the rat already knew how to get rid of the flames as it rolled over and snuffed them out.

  But it looked already wounded unable to move well, whimpering from pain but still not at the point where it would not lash back.

  It's a wounded animal now, and this is the most dangerous they get.

  Suddenly the rat jumped me and as I was about to move, I realized that my foot was stuck, looking, there was one rat who was apparently slightly more mature had already bit into my ankle, I didn't feel the bite because I was probably too focused on the massive rat, and this will probably be my end.

  A laughable end to a life that had just started.

  "LUCAS!" Will's shout was all I could hear as the wide fang of the rat was closing on me.

[You Who Have Feasted Upon Monsters, Hunger for the tender Flesh of a wounded prey]

  Suddenly, I felt my stomach falling as if I hungered for a thousand years, the feeling was so sudden and strong that I felt that I was about to faint.

  Immediately afterward my hand shuddered as a dark substance coated it and the sword along with it, shooting forward towards the incoming rat.

  The substance shaped itself into two massive jaws that covered half of the incoming rat then clamped tight, locking fang to fang.

  For an instant I could see nothing but the spine and internal organs of the massive rat hovering in the air then they dropped pooling around the half mangled body a massive pool of grim and blood.

  The substance that manifested from my arm looked nothing but that of a demonic jaw, slowly crunching a disturbing sound of bones inside them, as blood dripped from between its jaws while it crunched, and crushed the bones and organs of the rat inside them. Then it swallowed it.

  And suddenly my insane hunger dissipated.

[You have 'Consumed' and obtained a new skill, [Crunch] ]

You have replenished your stamina.

You have healed some of your wounds.

[Congratulations! You are one of the first to clear a dungeon. Please wait for your rewards.]

"What the fuck was that?" Will said.